North Korea laid out onerous conditions on Thursday for any talks with Seoul or Washington, including the withdrawal of UN sanctions and a guaranteed end to South Korea-US joint military drills.
“If the US and South enemies... Genuinely want dialogue and negotiation, they should take these steps,” North’s National Defence Commission said. The conditions are almost certain to be rejected outright by both South Korea and the United States, which have themselves made dialogue conditional on the North taking steps towards denuclearisation.
The Commission’s statement was North’s latest salvo in a heated exchange over dialogue issue, which has become new focus of a rhetorical
battle that has raised tensions on the Korean peninsula to their highest level for years.
South Korea’s new President, Park Geun-Hye, has made tentative — and conditional — offers of talks, which received the backing of US Secretary of State John Kerry during his recent Northeast Asia tour.